Tag Archives: George Gilder

Nicholas Negroponte said, in the context of the United States, that all that was carried on wireguides would shift to wireless (e.g., telephony) and all that was carried by wireless (e.g., television) would shift to wireguides. Wireless was better at connecting people who were inherently mobile; while wireguides made better sense for hauling large amounts of data needed to give people high-quality entertainment experiences. George Gilder called this the Negroponte Switch.

The US market, of course, was heavily wired to start with: twisted-pair copper from the phone company and co-ax from the cable company coming to most homes and offices. In this context, the Negroponte Switch made eminent sense. The refarming, for mobile uses, of 700 MHz frequencies that were inefficiently used for television, earlier in 2008 was a manifestation of the Negroponte Switch.

The difference in developing countries was that the incumbents had failed to roll out copper to most homes to start with. They were content with serving the government and business elites and themselves with the perks that come with monopoly. So when the entry barriers were removed, people obtained telephone services through wireless in the first instance, there weren’t ..read more